I admit, it’s easy to see the glass half empty. Easy to see the bad before we see the good. And when we go through hard times it’s easy to focus on what’s being done to us or what’s being said about us. It’s easy to fumble around in the darkness and hard to focus on the light.
I remember navigating through the dark season of a terminal diagnosis with my dad. Those days, weeks, months were excruciating.
I remember praying, meditating on God’s Word for healing, and believing for a miracle but the miracle I wanted to see didn’t come. Because when you’re in the thick of darkness, it’s hard to focus on the light.
When you walk through a situation or a season of an unanswered prayer, it can bring you to a crisis of faith. The intersection of faith and doubt, asking yourself “do I really believe what I say I believe about God and His Word”.
During that season with my dad, I had to decide whether to continue to trust what I knew about God more than what the doctors said, how I felt, or what I saw. I remember how hard it was, the constant battle between the “natural” versus the “spiritual”.
When we are having a hard time, is it possible that the good really outweighs the bad?
I don’t know about you but I don’t really like the saying “look on the bright side”. Most often this phrase is used without thought and dismisses the pain of those who are already suffering. Additionally, it sometimes pushes those who are carrying a heavy burden to deny the hard place of their circumstance.
The things is, God does not want us to deny our dark seasons. Instead He wants us to acknowledge them and call them out as they are. Because He can handle the darkness.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it” (John 1:5 WEB).
In our dark seasons, God wants us to seek and find Him. He wants our faith to grow in the dark. And He wants our prayer life to flourish in the dark. He wants our strength to be renewed. And He wants to be our peace and comfort.
So how do we navigate in the dark?
We must focus on the light. Think about waking up in the middle of the night trying to make your way to the other side of a dark room. You see a flicker of light in the corner of the room. Your eyes adjust and begin to focus on the light. Now you’re able to navigate your way across the room by focusing on the light.
The same applies when we are in a dark season, instead of measuring the darkness may we focus on the light. The light of Jesus. He holds us in those seasons. He is with us and He will walk through it with us.
“Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:2 WEB).
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